There is a $75.5 million discrepancy over the sum allegedly held by a BISX-listed firm’s broker/dealer affiliate for a claimed multinational fraud, Tribune Business can reveal, with regulators having seized computers and a server from its downtown Nassau offices.
The January 18, 2013, report to the US courts by Robb Evans, the American receiver for BC Capital Group, said senior executives at Alliance Investment Management alleged to his Bahamian co-liquidators that the broker/dealer was holding less than $500,000 in cash for the insolvent investment scheme.
The report contrasted this statement with the findings of Bahamian accountant, James Gomez, the voluntary liquidator first appointed for the BC Capital Group entities, who in a report filed with the Supreme Court alleged that Alliance was acting as custodian for some $80 million belonging to the scheme.
Pledging that together with its Bahamian co-liquidators, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Bahamas accountants, Kevin Cambridge and Kevin Seymour, it would get to the bottom of this discrepancy, the Robb Evans report revealed the following:
– The Securities Commission of the Bahamas, as part of its probe into Alliance’s role and involvement in the BC Capital Group collapse, seized computers and a server from the company’s offices at the British Colonial Hilton’s Centre of Commerce on Bay Street.
– Forensic specialists from PwC North America have been brought in to examine the electronic hardware seized from Alliance.
– BC Capital invested $5 million in two preference share issues by Alliance, worth some $2 million and $3 million respectively, as “in-kind” transactions with no funds changing hands. BC Capital Group holds 100 per cent of Alliance’s preference share capital, and both issues were staged in 2010 and 2011 to lift the latter’s BISX-listed parent, Benchmark (Bahamas), out of its then-solvency deficiency.
– KPMG said it was prevented by an “internal policy” from acting as co-liquidator for BC Capital Group with Robb Evans, leading to PwC (Bahamas) appointment in that capacity.
The findings disclosed in the Robb Evans report will likely raise further questions for Benchmark (Bahamas) existing 735 Bahamian investors as to the potential impact on the company, and their investment, and its viability/strength going forward.
